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The New World Avenue and Vicinity
Konwicki careens purposefully from private history (his vices, obsessive Lithuanian reveries, and advancing old age) to a time capsule of cultural to portraits of the artists, writers, actors, and film directors who accounted for the explosive burst of creative activity in Poland after the war. His tone can be mischievous, cantankerous, or despairing, but also unexpectedly touching.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
2 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Tadeusz Konwicki
35 books106 followersProse writer, screenwriter and film director. Founder of the 'cinema d'auteur' in Poland and author of 20 books. Born in 1926 in Nowa Wilejka, near Vilnius (today Naujoji Vilnia, Lithuania), died on January 7th in Warsaw at 88 years old.
Konwicki was educated at the Universities of Cracow and Warsaw and began writing for newspapers and periodicals. He served on the editorial boards of leading literary magazines and followed the official Communist Party line. His first work, Przy budowie (1950; “At the Construction Site”), won the State Prize for Literature. He began a career as a filmmaker and scriptwriter in 1956; his film Ostatni dzień lata (“The Last Day of Summer”) won the Venice Film Festival Grand Prix in 1958. By the late 1960s he had quit the Communist Party, lost his job in the official film industry, and become active in the opposition movement.
Konwicki’s work is suffused with guilt and anxiety, coloured by his wartime experiences and a sense of helplessness in confronting a corrupt and repressive society. Chief among his novels are Rojsty (1956; “The Marshes”) and Sennik wspóczesny (1963; A Dreambook for Our Time), a book that writer and critic Czesław Miłosz called “one of the most terrifying novels of postwar Polish literature.” His other works of that period are Wniebowsta̦pienie (1967; “Ascension”) and Zwierzoczłekoupiór (1969; The Anthropos-Spectre-Beast). His later books—including Kompleks polski (1977; The Polish Complex), the bitterly mocking Mała apokalipsa (1979; A Minor Apocalypse), and the lyrical Bohiń (1987; Bohin Manor)—confront Poland’s social cataclysms of the late 1970s and the ’80s. The autobiographical Wschody i zachody ksie̦życa (1981; Moonrise, Moonset) recounts some of Konwicki’s experiences during the period of martial law in Poland.
Konwicki was educated at the Universities of Cracow and Warsaw and began writing for newspapers and periodicals. He served on the editorial boards of leading literary magazines and followed the official Communist Party line. His first work, Przy budowie (1950; “At the Construction Site”), won the State Prize for Literature. He began a career as a filmmaker and scriptwriter in 1956; his film Ostatni dzień lata (“The Last Day of Summer”) won the Venice Film Festival Grand Prix in 1958. By the late 1960s he had quit the Communist Party, lost his job in the official film industry, and become active in the opposition movement.
Konwicki’s work is suffused with guilt and anxiety, coloured by his wartime experiences and a sense of helplessness in confronting a corrupt and repressive society. Chief among his novels are Rojsty (1956; “The Marshes”) and Sennik wspóczesny (1963; A Dreambook for Our Time), a book that writer and critic Czesław Miłosz called “one of the most terrifying novels of postwar Polish literature.” His other works of that period are Wniebowsta̦pienie (1967; “Ascension”) and Zwierzoczłekoupiór (1969; The Anthropos-Spectre-Beast). His later books—including Kompleks polski (1977; The Polish Complex), the bitterly mocking Mała apokalipsa (1979; A Minor Apocalypse), and the lyrical Bohiń (1987; Bohin Manor)—confront Poland’s social cataclysms of the late 1970s and the ’80s. The autobiographical Wschody i zachody ksie̦życa (1981; Moonrise, Moonset) recounts some of Konwicki’s experiences during the period of martial law in Poland.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 21, 2015
The book you've been waiting for, if you've been waiting for an oblique critique of the Polish government in the 1980s. And damned if I wasn't!
December 28, 2022
I have this book but have not read it.
I gave it 5 stars because I am 1/4 Lithuanian.
I will update this review if I get to reading it.
I am pretty well read on the area for an American, but have never been there. I have been to Chicago though. Been to the Balzekas Museum and Grand Dukes Restaurant, have tried all the beers.
Stumbled on the Polish State Convention at an 1870's Church in New Waverly Texas...2022.
In Texas the Czechs and Germans get the props but there is quite a bit of Polish history too, you just have to dig more for it.
I gave it 5 stars because I am 1/4 Lithuanian.
I will update this review if I get to reading it.
I am pretty well read on the area for an American, but have never been there. I have been to Chicago though. Been to the Balzekas Museum and Grand Dukes Restaurant, have tried all the beers.
Stumbled on the Polish State Convention at an 1870's Church in New Waverly Texas...2022.
In Texas the Czechs and Germans get the props but there is quite a bit of Polish history too, you just have to dig more for it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews